Boskalis Continues Subsea Push as VBMS Stays Busy

Royal Boskalis Westminister is proceeding with a plan set out earlier this year to boost its presence in the subsea services market, after posting solid results in the segment in the third quarter of 2017.

In the Corporate Business Plan 2017-2019, Boskalis stated that strengthening its market position in the area of subsea services is an important objective, towards which the company took the first step with the acquisition of subsea survey specialist Gardline mid-August.

Additionally, Boskalis recently acquired the diving support vessel DSV Constructor and is currently in negotiations for the purchase of the existing SAT DSV.

The company reports that subsea services utilization levels remained stable in Q3, with vessels also being deployed internally on offshore wind farms and unexploded ordnance clearance projects.

Regarding the more project-related activities, VBMS and its cable-laying activities can look back on another busy period in which they made a substantial contribution to the division’s results, Boskalis said.

At the end of October, VBMS won the Borssele Beta export cables installation contract valued EUR 70 million.

Overall, Boskalis said that the company’s offshore energy results in the third quarter of 2017 were in line with expectations.

The revenue and the segment results were lower compared to previous quarters, which Boskalis sees as a result of poor conditions in the oil and gas sector.